By Russ Britt

Getting hospitals, doctors and clinics to the point where they can easily share electronic patient records remains an elusive goal in the ongoing effort to bring the health-care profession into the digital age, a study released Thursday says.

The report from the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, or WEDI, says in a 122-page report that achieving some sort of standard that allows a doctor in New York to retrieve patient records from a hospital in California during a medical emergency is essential if the nation’s multibillion-dollar effort to bring health-care online will be successful.

wavebreakmedia / Shutterstock.com

WEDI, founded by former Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Louis Sullivan in 1993, made that same recommendation when it issued its first report 20 years ago. In an interview with MarketWatch, Sullivan said that the medical system was close but not there yet.

“Clearly, this is very desirable. We need to have a seamless system where we can have various segments of our health-care system in contact with other segments so that this can improve efficiency and have care more readily available,” Sullivan said.

A seamless system was one of the goals that the Obama administration had in mind when it included $30 billion in spending on health-care technology upgrades in the 2009 stimulus bill. The bill provided funding for doctors, clinics and hospitals to help upgrade their technology.

While many medical organizations have been able to digitize their records and share them within a closed network, finding a common link for those groups to share outside the network has been difficult. Further, the amount of money dedicated to technology upgrades may not be enough as one single group, the non-profit Kaiser Permanente health maintenance organization in California, spent roughly $30 billion just to be able to smoothly share records among its own clinics and hospitals.

Devin Jopp, WEDI’s chief executive, said industry must drive the effort. He’s not expecting new federal legislation, but says the industry should make significant progress in five years.

“In terms of when can you actually walk in as a patient, swipe your information and have this kind of be seamless, I think that’s probably a little further off,” Jopp said. He says he’s hoping that within 10 years that is a possibility.

About Health Exchange

Health Exchange guides investors to the crucial market intelligence they need to keep up with the health care industry, which makes up one-sixth of the U.S. economy. Anchored by Russ Britt, Health Exchange is the essential site for those looking for the most important news, data and analysis on the sector. You can reach Russ at Rbritt@marketwatch.com.